Nursing education in the time of COVID-19 : What has it taught us ?

https://doi.org/10.14528/snr.2021.55.1.3080 In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the World Health Organization declared 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife (World Health Organization, 2020). Although this was a significant year for healthcare professionals, we will remember it primarily for the emergency caused by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, which affected both clinical practice and nursing education. Today, when society and healthcare are facing one of the greatest global health challenges, when citizens are committed to observing social distancing and taking the necessary measures to contain the epidemic, and when different sectors of the economy are adapting to these new measures, we should also consider the impact of the epidemic on the educational system, and consequently, also on nursing education. With the first wave of the spring epidemic behind us, we should perhaps be better prepared now; however, the sudden closure of all educational institutions has once again caught us completely off guard. When all educational institutions went into lockdown, teaching and learning was moved to the home environment and took the form of what is known as distance education or distance learning. Provided at all levels of education, this form of learning has a particular global characteristic: it is not a method of implementation previously discussed in educational or academic literature, and nor does it follow the actual principles of distance education. To describe this form of education, the term ''emergency remote teaching'' has therefore become internationally accepted (Green, Burrow, & Carvalho, 2000) Emergency remote teaching stands for a temporary transfer of courses to an "alternative form" due to a state of emergency. This involves the use of distance-only forms of teaching to replace the established face-to-face teaching methods, as well as hybrid or combined teaching methods for the duration of the emergency situation. Over the years, experts and researchers in the field of digital technologies for educational purposes have carefully coined the terms used to define and distinguish between highly variable forms of solutions adopted by educational institutions, i.e. distance learning, distributed learning, blended learning, online learning, mobile learning, etc. Nevertheless, it sometimes seems that not many users outside the sphere of researchers and experts in this field of educational technologies are aware of the main distinctions between these concepts (Hodges, Moore, Lockee, Trust, & Bond, 2020). It is a fact that effective distance education is based on carefully and systematically planned and designed lectures or instructional sessions and assessment strategies (Authement & Dormire, 2020). However, in emergency circumstances, this carefully calibrated process of planning and preparation is not really necessary. Typically, teachers need between six and nine months to plan and prepare an online course. This means that it is nearly impossible to expect every teacher to suddenly be an expert in online teaching, considering that on average they only had a few days or weeks to prepare (Hodges et al., 2020). In addition, we must also consider other principles associated with distance learning: learning does not only take place when the student and the teacher are together in the classroom (or in an online environment), but also involves students' independent work. This often seems to be neglected. Pedagogical activities in class should also aim at finding and reading on the required topics covered in the course, writing different texts, reflecting on experiences, creating new knowledge and insights, communicating with the teacher and other participants in the educational process, whether in a synchronous or asynchronous manner (Jowsey, Foster, CooperIoelu, & Jacobs, 2020). We must admit that our online lessons may not always provide our students with the full presentation of the course topics or may not be well planned and implemented. Nevertheless, we must keep Editorial / Uvodnik

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the World Health Organization declared 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife (World Health Organization, 2020). Although this was a significant year for healthcare professionals, we will remember it primarily for the emergency caused by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, which affected both clinical practice and nursing education.
Today, when society and healthcare are facing one of the greatest global health challenges, when citizens are committed to observing social distancing and taking the necessary measures to contain the epidemic, and when different sectors of the economy are adapting to these new measures, we should also consider the impact of the epidemic on the educational system, and consequently, also on nursing education. With the first wave of the spring epidemic behind us, we should perhaps be better prepared now; however, the sudden closure of all educational institutions has once again caught us completely off guard. When all educational institutions went into lockdown, teaching and learning was moved to the home environment and took the form of what is known as distance education or distance learning. Provided at all levels of education, this form of learning has a particular global characteristic: it is not a method of implementation previously discussed in educational or academic literature, and nor does it follow the actual principles of distance education. To describe this form of education, the term ''emergency remote teaching'' has therefore become internationally accepted (Green, Burrow, & Carvalho, 2000) Emergency remote teaching stands for a temporary transfer of courses to an "alternative form" due to a state of emergency. This involves the use of distance-only forms of teaching to replace the established face-to-face teaching methods, as well as hybrid or combined teaching methods for the duration of the emergency situation.
Over the years, experts and researchers in the field of digital technologies for educational purposes have carefully coined the terms used to define and distinguish between highly variable forms of solutions adopted by educational institutions, i.e. distance learning, distributed learning, blended learning, online learning, mobile learning, etc. Nevertheless, it sometimes seems that not many users outside the sphere of researchers and experts in this field of educational technologies are aware of the main distinctions between these concepts (Hodges, Moore, Lockee, Trust, & Bond, 2020).
It is a fact that effective distance education is based on carefully and systematically planned and designed lectures or instructional sessions and assessment strategies (Authement & Dormire, 2020). However, in emergency circumstances, this carefully calibrated process of planning and preparation is not really necessary. Typically, teachers need between six and nine months to plan and prepare an online course. This means that it is nearly impossible to expect every teacher to suddenly be an expert in online teaching, considering that on average they only had a few days or weeks to prepare (Hodges et al., 2020). In addition, we must also consider other principles associated with distance learning: learning does not only take place when the student and the teacher are together in the classroom (or in an online environment), but also involves students' independent work. This often seems to be neglected. Pedagogical activities in class should also aim at finding and reading on the required topics covered in the course, writing different texts, reflecting on experiences, creating new knowledge and insights, communicating with the teacher and other participants in the educational process, whether in a synchronous or asynchronous manner (Jowsey, Foster, Cooper-Ioelu, & Jacobs, 2020). We must admit that our online lessons may not always provide our students with the full presentation of the course topics or may not be well planned and implemented. Nevertheless, we must keep
Sabina Ličen 1, * 1 University of Primorska, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing, Polje 42, 6310 Izola, Slovenia in mind that every teacher will deliver their lessons to the best of their ability. It is important, therefore, to distinguish between the typical forms of effective distance education and emergency remote teaching, i.e. the educational process conducted in a hurry with minimal resources and with too little time for effective preparation. In the current circumstances, the primary goal is not to build a strong educational ecosystem, but to provide temporary access to instruction and support for learning in a way which can be set up quickly and reliably in emergency situations (Means, Bakia, & Murphy, 2014). This, of course means that it is imperative that it focus on the student. The student should certainly be at the centre of our reflection. What fills us with optimism in this regard is the fact that in the field of nursing education, several teachers are involved in projects which explore the impact of digital solutions in the field of education. In the near future, we will also be able to prepare additional teacher training courses focusing on this topic.
Although to date, there has been little research on the impact of emergency remote teaching on nursing education from the theoretical and practical perspective, some researchers have already published studies on this topic (Whittle, Tiwari, Yan, & Williams, 2020). In nursing education, there are also concerns about the potential closure of clinical learning environments, as it is in these settings that students acquire the essential clinical skills and other competencies relevant to their future field of work. So far, this process has been applied successfully. Perhaps we have learned something in this area as well.
We are therefore optimistic about the future and hope that one day COVID-19 will be but a distant memory. When that happens, however, we should not simply return to the established forms of education and forget about emergency remote teaching. Forms of distance education should become part of teachers' skills and competences acquired at universities and other educational institutions, as well as the subject of investment by educational institutions.